Move to put Geelong more fully on map

The Victorian government is wrapping muscle around the bones of long-existing plans to develop Geelong, the state’s second biggest city.

Yesterday Premier
Ted Baillieu
was in the city to announce the government would commit $25 million to expand the city’s football stadium.

The pledge is part of a concerted effort to transform the industrial centre and port, 75 kilometres south-west of Melbourne, into what Planning Minister
Matthew Guy
has described as the “darling city of Victoria in this generation coming".

The top priority is to convert the city’s Avalon airport into an international hub so overseas flights and a promised airport railway link can power urban and economic renewal.

A study has begun into whether Geelong’s port could take over Victoria’s automotive exports. The state government has also promised the area’s 175,000 residents they will be able to directly elect their mayor by late next year, following an election pledge to replace the “current antiquated model’’ where councillors make the appointment.

Mr Baillieu sprang to Geelong’s defence last week when former foreign minister
Alexander Downer
cited it as an example of “mediocrity and provincialism".

The Premier’s AFL side is the Geelong Cats and he is determined that the area, traditional Labor territory, benefits from Coalition government.

But not every Geelong resident welcomes development at breakneck speed. Independent candidate Heather Wellington ran in the state election for the seat of South Barwon, then held by Michael Crutchfield.

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Dr Wellington picked up nearly 3 per cent of the vote after a two-week campaign to raise awareness of a development issue near her home in Barrabool Hills, on Geelong’s fringe.

“I stood against him as an independent for the purpose of getting our voice heard," she said.

Dr Wellington claimed she contributed to the incumbentlosing his seat to Liberal Andrew Katos. “I’m proud of that," she said.

The independent was moved to action after the government and local council helped Motorcycle Australia to buy land near her home that is now earmarked as a motor sports facility.

She is fighting the development in the administrative tribunal.

“I’ve never imagined how difficult this is for communities, how costly it is, and the sense of injustice is enormous," she said.

The biggest development in Geelong is at Armstrong Creek, a rural area expected to accommodate 55,000 people when it is developed.

It was not controversial until recently, when residents realised plans for the development included an unpopular road.

Residents likely to be affected were sent a letter about Armstrong Creek which included a small map with a dotted line on it, according to Margarita Kumnick, who lives in Grovedale, at the southern end of Geelong.

That, along with two newspaper advertisements, was the extent of public consultation about the road.

“I was watching and we missed it, so I was really upset," Ms Kumnick said.

“It’s not much more than 100 metres from my house.

“No one hinted it was going to be six lanes wide, either."

She is spearheading a push to re-align the road, saying the new state government was more disposed to ­listen than the last.

But opposition parties are quick to capitalise on governments’ difficulties in planning.

Last year former planning minister
Justin Madden
approved a 600-lot housing development not far from Geelong, at Point Lonsdale, and got a hard time from then shadow planning minister Mr Guy.

“I have real concerns with the facts that the minister is basing his decisions on,“ Mr Guy said at the time.

Even developments that survive the political battle for planning approval have no guarantee of success.

The developers of one major project went into administration last December.

The Baillieu government’s push to develop Geelong is the latest in a long line of well-meaning initiatives focused on regional areas, most of which have barely left a dent in a long-established pattern that has seen coastal city growth sprint ahead.

Australia is one of the most urbanised of countries in a rapidly urbanising world. Federal government data shows 75 per cent of the population live in cities of at least 100,000 people.

In that sense, focusing regional development attention on Geelong makes sense. While it is regional, it is not rural, and it has natural advantages.

The city is closer to Melbourne than Wollongong is to Sydney (90 kilometres) or the Gold Coast to Brisbane (also 90 kilometres) and it has a university campus and a waterfront CBD.

Mr Guy is a believer. “Geelong has one of the greatest potentials of any part of Victoria."